How to Add Google Search in a WordPress Site

Do you want to use Google search on your WordPress site? Although WordPress comes with a built-in search feature, it is not very good. That’s why many site owners add Google site search on their WordPress site. In this article, we will show you how to easily add Google Search in a WordPress site.

Why You Should Use Google Search in WordPress?

The default WordPress search feature is not very useful. It often fails to find the relevant results. This forces site owners to look for alternatives.

Simply provide your WordPress site’s URL in ‘Sites to Search’ field. Next, you need to choose the language of your website. Lastly, click on the create button to continue.

Google will now create your custom search engine and will show you a success message with links to further actions. You need to click on the control panel button to continue editing your search engine.

This will take you to the control panel for your custom search engine. First, you need to click on the ‘Search engine ID’ button and copy your search engine ID.

Next, you need to click on the ‘Look and Feel’ section. Under the layout tab, select results only.

Once you are done, click on the save button at the bottom of the page to store your changes.

Now you can switch back to your WordPress site. Paste the search engine ID you copied earlier in the WP Google Search’s settings page and then click on the save changes button to store plugin settings.

After that you need to visit Appearance » Widgets page. There you will notice WP Google Search widget in the list of available widgets. Drag and drop the widget to a sidebar where you want to display the search form.

Click on the save button to store your widget settings.

You can now visit your website to see the search form in action.

Method 2: Manually Adding Google Search in WordPress

This method requires making changes to your WordPress theme or child theme files. It is not recommended for beginners. Make sure to backup your WordPress site before making any changes to your theme files.